Will Smith: The Hollywood star yet to receive the plaudits he deserves – from critics or the awards circuit

You can see Smith as a modern-day equivalent to Cary Grant a generation ago, writes Geoffrey Macnab. Grant appeared in so many mainstream movies that reviewers took him completely for granted

Will Smith in ‘King Richard’ (2021) about Venus and Serena Williams (AP)

Will Smith is one of the frontrunners for a Best Actor Oscar this weekend for King Richard,in which he plays Richard Williams, the patriarch and self-taught tennis coach who guides Venus and Serena from tough beginnings in Compton toward glory on the courts. It’s a typical, bravura Smith performance. He has bulked up a little and gone to great lengths to copy the real-life Williams’ shuffling gait. He is charming and funny but also shows a ruthless single-mindedness, gatecrashing the country clubs of white America and defying an openly racist tennis establishment.

It is easy to understand what drew Smith to King Richard. The actor opens his recently published autobiography Will with a frank and shocking account of his own father. “Daddio” – as Will calls him – was a self-made Philadelphia businessman with a ferocious work ethic, which he drummed into his kids. He demanded complete respect, and was sometimes also a violent alcoholic. When Smith was nine, he saw his father hit his mother so hard in the side of her head that she collapsed and started spitting blood.

In his book, Smith, born in 1968, resists the clichés of the typical misery memoir. His voyage around his father is nuanced and ambivalent. On one page he will describe seeing his mother or brother being beaten up. On the next, he will hold forth about how “Daddio” inspired him in his journey toward the top of the Hollywood tree.